I came into this class expecting complete disaster, because I had 0 knowledge of biology. Hearing the super-detailed exams and knowing so many details have also made it even more scary. Rest assured, all of these details are true. Despite not doing well on the first midterm, the overall class experience is much better than expected. He clearly knows how to explain, even with his speaking issue (I have a speech issue, so I relate to him very well). Additionally, his slides along with campuswire, TAs, and office hours give you all the tools needed to pass the class. Lastly, he was extremely caring to his students; even though I did not have any knowledge in biology, he was very patient and did not belittle me for that reason. I strongly recommend working out all the learning outcomes, his practice exams, and attending every optional review section. Overall, I would not take this class again (or biochemistry as a whole; its not my major) due to its sheer amount of material covered, but I would 100% take Lannan's class again.

Ryan Lannan is BY FAR the best professor I have had at UCLA. For how hard the content in this class can be, Lannan does a great job of breaking it down and making it as simple as he possibly can. A lot of the other reviews talk about how hard his tests are, etc. etc. If you sit down and think about it, for how complex the material covered in class is, he makes his tests on the easier side. Yea, there are tough questions sometimes, but I think we can all agree that Lannan takes his students' feedback into account - he changes point values based on how hard a question was perceived to be, he gives extra credit on tests, and he's willing to make exams easier in the future when he realizes he made an exam a little too hard.

Aside from Lannan's grading, I feel like there's a lot to appreciate about his teaching. He's one of those people who loves biochemistry, and honestly, I feel like his passion for the subject translates to his teaching. Some of his jokes aren't the best, but I mean he's trying. A lot of them made me chuckle at times.

So when you're thinking about taking 153A with a professor, I would HIGHLY recommend taking it with Lannan. He's approachable, he knows his stuff, and he's pretty lenient with grades (although he does focus a bit too much IMO on specific wording). This is the man who held office hours every day for 2 hours a day in Week 10 during the TA strikes. It's not often you find a professor like that.

Grading Distribution:
MT1: 20%
MT2: 20%
Final: 30%
Participation: 8%
Quizzes: 10%
Homework: 12%

Extra Credit: ~2% (0.25% for course evaluations; 0.5% for campusiwre; 1.25% for a group extra credit project)

While you might be deterred by many of the other reviews, I think it's important to keep in mind that this was Professor Lannan's first time teaching this course and he wasn't actually set to teach the course until a few weeks before the quarter started (we were supposed to have Jarrett). On top of that, this was also the Omnicron quarter where the first four weeks were online, so it was probably a lot for him to deal with.

The first midterm was rough, but it seems like he genuinely listened to a lot of the criticism and improved a lot when writing the second midterm and final by making them more clear and more easily understandable. I feel like the first midterm was also made worse by the fact that, for most bio students (myself included), it's the first time taking a short answer test that's so detail-orientated and not like any of the short-answer exams from the earlier Chem courses.

All in all, I feel like Lannan will get better over time as a lot of his issues when teaching this course genuinely seemed to stem from it being his first time plus not having a lot of time to prepare for the course. Try not to look too deeply into the other reviews as a lot of people in the class and GroupMe seemed to just blatantly ignore how shitty of a situation Lannan was put into when teaching this course. He improved a lot just over the course of the 10 weeks and I think he'll continue to improve with more experience. The dude genuinely seems like he cares for his students and for chemistry and I think he honestly just needs a little more time as a professor.

Dude looks like Rodrick from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies, he's also a terrible professor. DO NOT TAKE 153A WITH LANNAN.

Ryan Lannan, a professor whose first midterm results made a lot of people upset and angry. I, myself, was one of them. He gives quizzes that are incredibly easy to study for since most of them need memorization. He gives homework that is fairly manageable (although sometimes confusing with weird wording of the questions). In my own personal opinion, we all saw Ryan Lannan grow as a professor. He made a lot of people angry and realized what needed to be fixed in his class and actually addressed those things. The second midterm is evidence of that! The class average moved up drastically and that is because he gave a more structured study guide, helped people more effectively in office hours and asked better and more manageable questions on the midterm. He even puts bonus questions on the exams and it is possible to come back from a bad grade. I came back from a "C" and now have a safe "A" in this class.
It is also worth mentioning that this is biochemistry and it is supposed to be a difficult class and not everything can/should be blamed on the professor.
Ryan Lannan is a young and smart professor and deserves a second chance. I would give him this second change by taking this class again with this new and improved version of Ryan Lannan.

He is a good lecturer. The class averages for his tests were pretty high midterm I being in the high 80s and midterm II was in mid low 90s. He was disorganized at first but he truly listens to the criticism and fixes things that need to be fixed. Do not listen to people that are telling you this is the worst class ever because it truly is not. This was Dr. Lannan's first time teaching biochem so obviously there are going to be some kinks. He is understanding and has improved a lot over the quarter and I know he is only going to get better. Those who are complaining about their grade just did not study enough, you cannot expect to get a high grade if you are not putting in the effort. A lot of students were sadly very disrespectful and I honestly think it was partly because Dr. Lannan is young. Take this class, there is nothing unexpected thrown at you and he is a good lecturer. Quizzes are extremely easy too.

Tbh at the beginning of the class, I watched tons of Andrey K YouTube videos and ultimately gave up on watching any of professor Lannan’s lecture videos bc I attended one of the first professor Lannan’s lectures and didn’t learn anything in the class.
I kept thinking that the reason I was not learning was because of my poor foundation in chemistry & biology (the first week is mostly review), but I was wrong. I gave up too quickly on Professor Lannan’s lecture videos.
Even though Andrey K's videos are well explained, it is a waste of time to do anything other than watching professor Lannan’s lecture videos(+ doing the homework questions & the practice exams) to do well on the exams.
If I go back, I would trust professor Lannan’s way of teaching and watch his lecture videos. Exams are lecture-based, and you can’t answer the questions if you rely on an outside source. He’s a great lecturer. If you watch the recordings, pause, and take notes, you’ll be fine:) Do not stress out or freak out over this course the ways I did. Even if you think you have a poor foundation in chemistry or biology, professor Lannan’s lecture videos cover those areas pretty well.
Getting an A or even an A+ is doable for anyone with or without a strong foundation in biology or chemistry.
If anyone wants to get a head start in this class, professor Lannan provides notes before each lecture. Spend no more than 15 minutes to go over those notes, and don’t expect to learn anything from them without watching the lecture videos (I’ve wasted a lot of time trying to learn solely from the lecture notes, if I go back, I’ll just read them once and focus and try to learn based on the lecture videos).
Study the practice questions before midterms (they’re more crucial than homework questions, in my opinion). Sometimes for our midterms, we had two pages, precisely like the practice midterms. The rest of the questions were similar as well.
I never attended any office hours, but I used Campuswire. Anytime I had a question, I just posted my question there, and within one or 2 minutes, a classmate responded. It’s a handy app if you have questions about anything. People are very helpful there. Make sure to take advantage of that app. Don’t just use it to get extra credit.
My two complaints about this class are, first, sometimes midterm questions were mainly from unique details in the lecture videos instead of focusing on the main points (you have to ensure you thoroughly learn the lecture videos and don’t miss a detail or a point). My second complaint is that attendance was mandatory. I’ve never learned anything in the class. If you miss one point or don’t understand it during the lecture, you won’t learn the rest, and the rest of the lecture time will be a waste of time for you. That’s why I liked to watch the lecture videos on my own at my paste.

The hate Lannan received this quarter was so unwarranted. I rarely write reviews for professors but felt the need to, because I actually really enjoyed his class. If you read one review on here I want it to be this one.

Homework: Very fair, for each homework (one every week roughly) there will be one question that is graded on accuracy. Unless you're writing bullshit down you will get your points in this category. Homeworks right before the exam are graded on completion.

Quizzes: Again, extremely fair. Purely based on memorization (names of certain structures or systems) so if you didn't get the points that's on you. If there's a grading error you can get them corrected. The grading was a bit slow for quizzes but it doesn't really matter since the content of the quiz is literally memorization, so you basically know what score you got right after. They're quick and easy points.

Exams: Everybody shits on the exams but again, they are VERY FAIR. In fact I've had some of the best exam experiences in this course. i KNOW that how much I study will be reflected in my exam grade, because there are no curveballs or surprises. Compared to countless other classes I've taken where the exam would have diagrams/structures I've never seen, curveballs, trick questions, Lannan's exams were a godsend. Though he didn't provide a practice exam, it was never an issue personally because he made a study guide. People complain that Lannan sent out the study guide late (which I could see as being frustrating), but his study guides are literally just everything on the slides. I feel like if you review the slides any student could produce his study guides bullet for bullet without him releasing it. I would say like half of the exam questions were altered versions of questions in the homework, so make sure when you're studying that you go through all of them. After the first exam you'll be able to predict what kinds of questions you'll have. Truly straightforward exams with sufficient time. People complain but the exam averages were always good/high.

Lectures: Whether or not you like his lectures comes down to your learning style. Again I know he gets a lot of shit in this aspect, but personally his slides were extremely easy to understand for me, was 100% reflective of the material tested. Also it's important to note that he was thrown into this position last minute, I assume he had to make the slides and material as we went, which caused some slip ups during lecture (which he always corrected first thing in the next lecture). It is unfair to compare him to professors who have used the same slides for years and years. I'm confident that the next time he teaches this course it'll be a lot smoother because he already has the material.

Extra Credit: Has 2% extra credit that you can get by during course evals, participating on campuswire, and doing a project at the end of the quarter. Pretty good imo. They haven't graded the project yet so I can't say anything about how they're graded but I think it's nice to have extra credit in a course.

Valid Criticisms:
- Exam grading had lots of errors, but I genuinely think that this is more of the TAs' faults than the professor. The reason I say this is because while the majority of the class had reaally dumb grading mistakes (literally having the right answer but having points deducted, writing the synonym for a word in ur explanation but getting points off for not using a specific word), my TA's grading was pretty fair. I guess some of the other TA's didn't really read ppl's explanations fully or something. The only time the grading felt strange for me was for the first midterm, but the professor addressed those exam questions and gave back points for them. So I think the grading stuff is mainly the TAs' faults but I understand faulting Lannan for not reviewing the exam grading thoroughly.

- I heard in the groupme that he was a little unaccommodating regarding taking quizzes online (the rule is that you must be there in person for all exams). Most likely if you can't make it to an exam or quiz the points will be put towards the final or something. Never affected me but if this is something that matters to you just keep it in mind

In general I really enjoyed this course. I was nervous for it coming into it but found that a lot of the material connected to stuff I learned in AP Bio (ofc more in depth but). I'm not saying it is not a hard course, because it is. You will have to study a lot, but that's the nature of biochem and not exclusive to Lannan. I genuinely feel that my grade reflects the amount of work I put in, which I can't say about many other classes.

This quarter, Lannan was new, so there is definitely organizational work that can be done, but I don’t think there were too many faults with his content/teaching. Lannan very explicitly laid out what would need to be done to get an A at the beginning of the quarter which I think he stuck to. He offers a large amount of extra credit (2.5%) that people can get pretty easily; for our quarter, he offered a group project that was the majority of the EC contribution, but also had campuswire participation and end of course reviews factor into the extra credit.

Homework is simple, and answers can be found directly in the slides. He rarely ever makes you extrapolate beyond or theorize in homework, so if you pay attention, the homework is straightforward.

Quizzes are extremely fair. He gives notices of when quizzes will be and what material is quizzed. Most of the time it involves memorizing things like amino acids (names, drawing structures) or enzymes (names, recognizing structures). That being said, biochem is a memorization-heavy class, but that’s inherent to the class and if you don’t spend enough time with the content you may find it harder.

Exams were pretty fair. The average for the first (online) midterm was ~75, which he said he would curve, and for the second midterm it was high 80s or low 90s. Lannan tends to use specific keywords and many of the questions are all-or-nothing, so you need to be familiar with much of the exam-content. Only the final is cumulative, so midterm 2 was only from weeks 4-7, which was nice. The final was a bit trickier than the other exams, but I would say all the exams were about equal in difficulty.

Lannan is definitely not my favorite professor, but he’s not bad and he makes it extremely easy to get an A if you study the right material (if you do his study guides, the content directly correlates to the exams) and spend the proper amount of time for the class (I spent maybe ~2-4 hours per week total outside of lecture on homework, quizzes, and anything else, and more time during exam season).

Like the previous reviewer, I also took Chem14C with Lannan in fall quarter. Since it was his very first time teaching, Lannan was understandably not the best lecturer. He sometimes second-guessed himself, which in turn confused all of us. Fortunately, he tried his best to hold as many office hours and exam review sessions as he could, which helped me personally.

As far as exams go, my experience was definitely a rollercoaster. First midterm was fair (not too easy not too difficult) and mostly straightforward concepts. Even though I thought I had done well, I got a B due to small errors that add up. But things got worse on the second midterm, which I got a low C on. For most people, 50 minutes was NOT enough time, considering the sheer number of tricky problem-solving based questions on that test. Luckily, Lannan curved everyone up by 6% because he felt bad about the time crunch (he even admitted that he would've given us more time, except there was another class after us that needed the lecture hall). I think Lannan took our experiences from the midterm to give us a reasonable final; I had ample time to finish, which in turn reflected in my grade (100%). Of course, I had to be extremely comprehensive in my studying and brush up on all concepts to get a full score, but there was little pressure.

Ultimately, the extra credit was my saving grace. Lannan added 2.5% to our grade if we attended 5/10 (correction to the 8/10 the previous reviewer stated) of the discussion sections, which I think is very generous. He added another 2.5% if we did a group video project or an individual writeup. If he hadn't offered the EC, I wouldn't have gotten an A.